


narcotic bliss

by Kat2107



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Hand Jobs, Healing Sex, Joe Whump, Joe needs to sleep, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, mentions of torture, nicky takes care of joe, soft care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:55:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: They get Joe back a week later. They kill those who took him.But nobody can fight the enemy within Joe's own head. Nicky can only hope to help.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 27
Kudos: 177





	narcotic bliss

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a work by Abu Nuwas. Because I wanted to have a title from a work by Abu Nuwas. ;)

Nicky smashes the lock with the pommel of his sword. He doesn’t care about the damage. He doesn’t care about Nile flinching next to him either. It’s not her fault that it took so long to find Joe. Not Booker’s either. The man had dropped everything and raced to their side to help, no mention of exile, no gloating. And he _had_ found Joe in the end. But too late. A week was far too long. 

Nicky slams his shoulder into the door. Once, twice. On the third, it crashes open and he rolls into the room, sword raised. 

Painfully bright overhead lights reflect from pristine tiles... A bare metal toilet is bolted into the wall. There's a drain in the floor next to it. That’s it. 

Joe's naked form huddles into himself in the corner farthest from the door. He keeps his back to the door and shivers.

“Yusuf!” Nicky falls to his knees next to him and gently turns him onto his back, only to be met with a pair of bloodshot, tear encrusted eyes.

“Hey…” Nicky tears the glove off his right hand with his teeth and gently pushes Joe’s sweaty hair from his face, surveying the palid ruin beneath. His eyes have sunken behind deep

blueish shadows, his cheekbones stand starkly against the contrast of an unkempt beard. He’s lost weight. 

His racing heartbeat rabbits against Nicky's fingers, breath going harsh and too fast the moment he struggles to sit. 

"When was the last time you slept?" Nicky asks, already shrugging out of his hoodie. 

Joe groans softly in response. "Don't know. They tried with pain at first. Didn't work. Should maybe've looked more suffering."

Carefully pulling Joe to his feet, Nicky tugs his hoodie over Joe's head and helps him thread his arms into the sleeves.

They stand like this for a few seconds, Joe curling into the warmth of Nicky’s body and Nicky holding him - upright, if nothing else.

Then Nile clears her throat behind him. 

“We’re ready. Andy and Booker are on the move. Booker said something ‘bout C4, so we better hurry.”

Joe doesn't protest when Nicky picks him up. He doesn't say anything on the way to the car either, his head a heavy weight against Nicky’s shoulder. 

Nicky thinks he's fallen asleep, but the moment they settle into the backseat, Joe stirs. Unfocused eyes track everybody in the car, stopping on Booker in the passenger seat, as far away from Joe as possible. Because they remember still too vividly the last time Joe was tortured. 

“Hey, Book,” he murmurs. Nicky watches Booker’s face go through a weird dance of half-expression: relief, pain, sadness, anger and back to relief. 

“Hey, man. You ok?” 

Joe shudders against Nicky. “I will be,” he says and closes his eyes. 

He finally drifts off ten minutes before they reach the safe house. Jerks awake less than two minutes later. 

Nicky caresses his heart and murmurs the same words over and over. "You're safe. I got you. You're safe." 

This safe house is one of their favorites. Situated in an old orchard and rented out as a holiday home, it has all the amenities while being postcard picturesque. They've been on vacation in that house, sleeping in the second-floor corner bedroom that Joe painted in soft ochre colors with fine arabesque design along the walls. The same bedroom Nicky hoists him into now. 

Joe sways against him, anchoring himself with a death grip on Nicky's tac vest as he stares at the bed. Perfectly made. 

The pillows fluffed up, the blanket neatly folded. 

Nicky couldn't bring himself to sleep in it during the last week. 

He leaves Joe standing at the bedside and folds back the blanket in invitation. 

"I…" Joe swallows heavily. "I don't want to dirty it," he grits out. 

"Are you dirty?" Nicky asks softly and steps back around to his partner. 

"I feel like it."

Without a word, Nicky unbuckles his gear and drops everything where he stands. His shirt and pants follow. It's mechanical. Neither of them has the sense for anything but quick practicality. Joe looks ready to drop dead on the spot. 

Nicky takes his hand and leads him to the ensuite bathroom. 

He starts the shower, tests the temperature, guides Joe under the spray. Joe leans into the deceptively strong glass. He keeps his eyes closed and his face lifted into the water. Nicky washes his own hands before he reaches for Yusuf's. He gently runs his soapy fingers over Yusuf's wrists, over his palms, between his fingers, up to his elbows, and back down again. 

One hand, then the other. Yusuf sighs softly. 

Nicky doesn't tell him to stay awake. He'll catch him, should he drop off. Catch him and carry him to bed. 

But Yusuf doesn't. He pulls himself up and holds out his hand. 

"Soap," he croaks. 

"You got this?" 

"Yeah."

Nicky smiles and presses a kiss to Joe's forehead. "Alright. Turn around."

While Joe washes his front, Nicky washes his back, ignoring the faint tremors that run through Joe’s body like a relentless electrical current. 

They end up plastered together. Back to chest, Joe’s head rests against Nicky's shoulder, face lifted into the water while Nicky's hands rub the foam out of his curls. 

  
  


Nicky starts to breathe again when Joe lies curled against his side, mint-fresh breath tickling the crook of Nicky’s neck. They are here. Joe is here. In the bed Nicky hasn’t slept in for a week because he couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing. Joe’s Saif is leaning against the doorframe. It’s the only thing Nile found where Joe should have been. They had underestimated the warlord they’d been after, too safe in their arrogance that they were better than the man, even in his own territory. 

When Nicky closes his eyes, he still hears the soft hitch in Joe’s voice over coms. The only sign something had been wrong. 

Normally, Joe wouldn’t have been alone. But with Booker gone, there had only been Nile to go with Andy and Nicky provided long-range support to the best of his ability. Had the whole area been smaller, with fewer angles… 

_Arrogance_ , whispers his mind in the same accusatory tone he’d come to know so well over the last eight days, had welcomed so readily. 

Except, Joe is here. In his arms, warm and breathing and he will be ok. Joe could survive a week of sleep deprivation. He has survived much, much worse. 

If Nicky is the one who goes on until his soul gives in, Joe is the one who keeps living. 

He’ll be fine. 

The beautiful illusion shatters on a broken sob. Joe shoves out of Nicky’s arms and rolls out of bed. 

"I can't," he chokes on his hands and knees, dragging big gulps of breath into his lungs.

Nicky follows slower. 

"I can't sleep." Joe's voice breaks on the words when Nicky pulls him into his arms. 

"Nightmares?" Nicky asks. 

He feels the shake of Joe's head more than he sees it. 

"It's not safe. They wait until you relax. Then comes the light, the siren, water. Too cold to sleep. The quiet is almost worse.” 

Joe burrows against his neck and shivers. "I've heard your voice so many times… Waited for you to open the door. But it wasn't you, never was you. Nicky…" 

"I'm here," Nicky swears, but it's woefully inadequate, talking against hallucinations. "What do you need?" he asks instead. 

"Make it safe,” Joe whispers. "Make it stop.”

Nicky scratches his nails over the back of Joe’s neck, drinks up the familiar shudder. He presses his lips to Joe's temple. “Will you be ok when I leave you alone?”

Joe’s eyes zero in on him with the wobbly precision of a drunk. He nods. 

Nicky huffs and gets up from the floor, pulling the blanket from the bed to wrap it around Joe’s shivering body. “Don’t move.”

He drags the mattress off the bed and into a corner so it’s bordered by two solid walls. Then he moves the bedframe there until it boxes the mattress in on a third side. The blinds are already drawn, but Nicky covers them with blankets from the closet either way. The bathroom has no window. That should feel safe enough. 

Joe doesn’t try to stand when Nicky comes for him. He could, but that’s not the point. 

The point is, Nicky picks him up and carries him to the mattress. He fluffs the pillow behind his back, so he can comfortably sit in the corner and survey the room. He tucks the blanket around him while Joe drags in soft, open mouth pants to supply his exhausted body with oxygen that it can’t seem to be able to get enough of. 

Nicky doesn’t tell him to sleep. Joe jitters under his hands, his eyes darting about, calm and present one second, wild-eyed and lost the next. He’ll be fine. He needs time. He needs rest. He needs his hypervigilant mind to slow down. None of which can be forced. 

Nicky presses a soft kiss to his forehead. “Anything that wants to get to you has to go past me, Andy and Nile. I’ll be right back.”

It doesn't matter if he feels hungry, Joe looks like he hasn’t eaten in days and Nicky handing him food had been the first language they shared.

It has been “I’m sorry”, “thank you”, “I love you” and “You’re safe” over the years.

Booker jumps from his seat at the kitchen table when Nicky enters. Andy doesn’t move a muscle. Andy has a glass of vodka in front of her, Booker doesn’t.

It’s Nile who asks. “How is he?”

Nicky pulls a pack of bread from the cupboard and tosses the vegetables Nile cooked last night into the microwave.

“He hasn’t slept in several days. He is… not well.”

Nicky grabs the food and a bottle of water and leaves before Nile has a chance to voice the questions he sees in her eyes. 

“Sleep deprivation completely fucks with your head,” he hears Booker say behind him. “It destroys your sense of reality. Wherever Joe is? It’s best only Nicky is with him.”

As soon as Nicky closes the door to their room, Joe scoots over and makes room for him on the mattress. And as soon as Nicky sits, back pressed against the wall Joe is there, curls into Nicky’s warmth like it’s his only safe haven. 

“Brought you toast and veggies. It’s bland but your stomach won’t tolerate much more yet.” 

Joe in his right mind would pick a fight about spices, this Joe opens his mouth with a resigned expression, allowing Nicky to feed him a spoonful followed by a sip of water. 

They manage half the bowl and a piece of toast before Joe is dropping. Nicky ends up with the bowl quickly shoved under the bed frame to hold Joe upright once more, his back against Nicky‘s chest, warm and safe, and maybe this time his mind will allow him to sink into it. 

Joe's breathing doesn't quiet. Nicky can feel the tension roll off him in waves against his chest. Twitching fingers, twitching legs. 

He comes up gasping the second his shoulders drop, his desperate groan the only sound in the darkened room. Nicky tightens his arms around.

Maybe Andy's vodka will help. 

The thought brings up memories of another place, another time, another man. Ill-fitting as it is. The last thing Nicky wants to bring into this room is Booker. Joe's sanity hinges on feeling safe, but Booker… 

Nicky presses his cheek to Joe's temple, breathes in the fresh clean scent of soap and sweat that hasn't yet turned desperate. “Do you remember Colombia '74?” 

Joe makes a wounded sound. “Earthquake,” he says and in his voice is only concern, no fear. Because Joe will always love, despite everything. “Is he ok?”

“Worried about you. He’ll deal.” 

Joe laughs softly against Nicky’s skin. “Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.”

“You’re so polite that it hurts. And you know he’s scared of the cold.” 

Nicky sighs. There will be a time and a place to talk about Booker, how he crossed half the world with not a second to spare, the moment Joe needed him. But that time is not now and it’s not the point he’s trying to make. 

“Do you remember what happened after the earthquake?” After a building had crushed Booker, buried him and the toddler he’d been carrying to safety. 

The situations are not the same. Booker had slept. Booker had _died_ with the child cradled safely against his broad body, letting the walls crush his own ribs into his lungs over and over to shield it. He’d been fine, physically. They had dug him out and he healed. Curled into a corner of an empty room, screaming himself awake whenever he dozed off, too awake of every heartbeat and every breath in his vicinity. Then he had knocked himself out with any kind of alcohol Andy managed to procure, only to wake worse than before. 

"Andy fixed him," Joe murmurs. 

On day four or five, she had slammed down her bottle of moonshine and marched into Booker’s room. It had been hard not to listen through the paper-thin walls. Booker's sobs had turned to low words and then soft moans. 

Nicky gently runs his fingers through Joe’s curls, unruly from drying as they were after the shower. He drinks up the sigh that runs through Joe’s body, covering the faint tremors that never stop now, the currents running under Joe’s skin like a live wire. 

Nicky would give his right arm for his presence to be enough to rest Joe’s vigilance.

“Will you let me?” he asks softly.

“I’d let you do anything, Nicolò. Do not ask for what is yours already.”

"You're hurt.”

Joe blinks slowly, staring off into the darkness. 

“Yeah. I am,” he says seconds later. Then, more softly: “I trust you. I would know your hands if I forgot my own name. I _did_ forget my own name at times, but you could’ve carved my heart from my body with your bare fingers and still I would’ve trusted these hands.” 

Joe closes his eyes and lifts one of Nicky’s hands to place a kiss on the knuckles. He misses and his fingers smack into the back of Nicky’s hand instead. He never misses. 

Releasing the breath he'd been holding for what feels like hours, Nicky lets his fingertips brush over Joe's and drop to his chest. His lover’s form has changed in the time since Nicky last held him. Joe lost weight and surety. His shoulders fit differently into Nicky's embrace, but he makes the same sound when Nicky's fingers brush over his nipple - a gentle hitch in his breath and a slow exhale that brushes over Nicky's throat as Joe turns his face to him. 

Nicky hadn’t heard the sound their first time together, hands grasping and searching each other in the shadow of a ruined wall. He hadn’t heard it the second, third or fourth time, desperately caught in his fear of failing this, failing Yusuf and whatever little flower of companionship had bloomed between them. 

But then he had. Had allowed himself to look at Yusuf’s body, had allowed himself to touch and _see,_ and had been lost forever. He’d been convinced that nothing ever could surpass this moment, this tender gasp, until Yusuf had moaned his name.

“Nico…” 

“Shhhh. I’m here, Hayati. I love you.” 

Nicky’s fingers scratch along Joe’s rib cage and down over his stomach, firm enough to not tickle, making their presence and intent known beyond all doubt. 

Joe rises to meet him, lifts his hips into Nicky’s hand as he tugs Joe's sleeping pants down his hips.

With the bedframe boxing them in, it feels like their own private cave. A throwback to times past when it had truly been only them hiding from the world to find a new truth within each other. Nicky spent hours learning Yusuf's body. 

And if there is one thing he allows himself to be silently proud of, it is the fact that he knows more ways to pleasure Yusuf al-Kaysani than he knows ways to kill a man. It serves him well now. 

Joe is slow to react to the touch. His exhausted body refuses to yield to the invitation when it so clearly needs everything to survive. 

Nicky's lips feel their way up Joe's neck, his tongue mapping the skin from clavicle to the sensitive spot right under his ear. 

"I missed you so," Nicky whispers into the soft hitch of Joe's breath. He allows his finger to brush up Joe's clock, feeling its slow swell with a secret smile.

"I dreamed every night of holding you like this again, to surround you, press my love into your skin with kisses," Nicky pressed his lips to Joe's neck. "and kisses…," his collarbone, "and kisses," his lips. 

"Nicky…" 

"I promised, I'd worship you until you forget everything but my name and I would have to hold onto yours for you." 

"Isn't that blasphemy?" Joe murmurs and shifts his hips to press his cock more firmly against Nicky's hand.

"I'll repent in the morning." 

Laughing softly, Joe presses his hips more firmly against Nicky's hand. He can be the most patient creature in the world with others' pleasure. His own? Not so much. Nicky loves him for it. 

He pulls his hand back and lifts it to Joe's mouth, only to be caught halfway and dragged there. Joe wets the palm with his tongue, draws small circles, eyes locked with Nicky's, promising retaliation. 

He lets go a dozen heartbeats later, sinking back against Nicky's chest with soft puffs of exhausted breaths that remind Nicky starkly what this is about. 

_Joe_ , he tells himself as he closes his fingers around the silken flesh of Joe's dick, _this is about Joe_. About his low moan at the first stroke, and at the second. How he releases a long breath that sounds like coming home. 

Nicky lets his hand slide over Joe’s length with an easy grip a few times, from root to tip, waking his brutalized senses slowly to the gentleness of the touch. 

He feels when Joe goes all soft and pliant against him, a sweet, pleasurable weight resting against his body and pressing down against Nicky's own dick. It's not what he planned, it's not what's going to happen, all he wants is to pull these little sighs from Joe's lips, the impatient shifts of his hips when Nicky isn't gripping him tight enough. Nicky wants to see the pretty head of Joe's cock slide up between his fingers, glistening with the arousal he so generously spreads with each move. 

"You good?" Nicky asks. 

Joe groans. "Yes. Perfect. Feels perfect. Missed you, too."

Now it's on Nicky to laugh. He captures Joe's mouth with his, licks past his lips and into a dance that is older than them, but nobody has quite danced it to their perfection. Nicky knows every step, every turn, every little sound, knows how to drink up the groan Joe makes when Nicky twists his hand just so, rubs his thumb along the vein, gathers more of Joe’s precum, moves faster. He knows how to hold Joe down so he can strain into it without feeling caged, a hand splayed over his sternum, wrist brushing a nipple, whispering love in a language that nobody else speaks. 

Joe shakes part in his arms, seizing into his embrace as if it’s the only thing securing him to earth. He groans Nicky’s name like a prayer. Nicky kisses him like a benediction. 

“I’m here, my heart. I’m here.” 

Joe drags himself around he is flush to Nicky’s front. He smears sticky white over Nicky’s belly, and Nicky can’t find it in him to care. All he cares about is Joe's desperate breaths against his chest, his hand pawing the front of Nicky’s sleeping pants. 

Nicky gently draws it away. 

He smiles when Joe blinks up at him, lips parted on small huffs of breath, his stunningly soft eyes still blown wide.

“I’m good,” Nicky whispers.

Joe presses his thigh against Nicky’s erection and hums. He peeks up through his long lashes, a woeful glance in the face of insurmountable odds. “Let me watch?”

“What?” Nicky blinks. 

Joe sneaks his hand back to the front of Nicky’s pants and smiles, not quite here, but very much in this moment. “Let me watch you?”

He smiles. 

Nicky is helpless against the kitten-touch drag of fingers drawing small circles over the cloth. He is helpless, helplessly enslaved to his own reaction to this touch. 

Groaning he shoves a hand into his pants and struggles the waistband down just enough to let his dick peek out. Joe rolls over, curls against Nicky’s side and places his hand on top of Nicky’s as Nicky begins to move. 

There is no finesse to it. Up-down, use his own precum to ease the glide, press where he needs to, drag himself to a peak only to hurtle over the edge and fall. 

His hand is the least important part of the act, watching Joe, Joe’s hand resting on Nicky’s thigh, his breath falling in rhythm with Nicolo, only to lose it when Nicky’s breath speeds up with every stroke. 

Joe is here. Joe is here, Nicky can feel him, he can smell him, hold him, drag him closer to press a kiss into his curls as he comes. 

Joe is…

Nicky comes down slowly. His dick twitching in his fist, come splattered all over the sticky patches Joe smeared there. He chuckles softly and presses another kiss into Joe’s curls. The only answer is a non-descript hum, a sigh, a shuffle, then nothing. Because Joe has fallen asleep. He lies curled against Nicky's body, his face gone slack against Nicky's skin, lashes shadowing his cheeks that finally carry a touch of color again. 

There is something to be said for getting up now, getting a washcloth before things get disgusting. But moving, with Joe’s head pillowed on his shoulder is out of question. 

Nicky wishes he had a towel at hand. 

He carefully extricates his left leg from under Joe’s and pulls his sleeping pants off with his toes. It will do. With every movement, he expects Joe to jolt awake again but Joe continues to breathe easily, soft puffs against Nicky’s shoulder.

Nicky wipes down his chest, his hand, wordlessly promises Joe another shower when they wake. 

Then he lies back and draws the blanket over them from the bed frame. Waits again for Joe to bolt upright. 

He doesn’t.

Nicky closes his eyes and lets go of a long exhale. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I pondered Nicky saying something not so nice to Nile about how someone is after a few nights of systemic torture via sleep deprivation, but there wasn't the room to really explore it and it didn't feel in character with Nicky. Booker might say something.   
> But this, I wanted to be about Nicky and Joe and feeling safe. 
> 
> One day, when I feel really very brave and more ready, I will maybe write that fic.


End file.
